


All Is Lost

by Niccolò Machiavelli (Piccolo_Machiavelli)



Series: Before the Storm, After the Fire [8]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, 16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, Machiavelli - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 22:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9209027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piccolo_Machiavelli/pseuds/Niccol%C3%B2%20Machiavelli
Summary: A dreamy woman comes to give poor little Machiavelli some of her company, and he is mesmerised by her.





	

The diplomat sits in his cell, listening as drops of murky water cascade down from the ceiling and onto the floor. There are lice in the walls, he realises, there’s plenty of lice here. He idly scratches at his leg, his bright eyes fixated on nothing in particular. His arms droop at his sides like withering flowers, and he cannot raise them, even if he was to try. Oh, but don’t you know? he poses the question at the guards strolling outside, but he never says a word out loud. I’ve been broken, broken, I say! I have been broken, and I am in need of a cure.

“Niccolò.” The voice outside his cell rings out, clear as day. The speaker is young, and he talks with a slight stutter. Everything feels like a dream, and the poor diplomat wonders when he’ll wake up from his nightmare.

“It’s Signor Machiavelli, per favore,” the diplomat answers. He does not hang his head. He does not snap at the boy who calls him. He is a man now - he has been since the day he was born, his mother said - and he wishes to be addressed properly. “You have called me?”

“Sì, Signore, um…,” the boy clears his throat, pausing before he delivers his bit of news: “She’s here to help you.”

“My wife?” he cannot stop himself from saying it out loud. Yes, he is definitely in a dream. This is the only thing he’s certain of. “She has come to pay me a visit here?”

The boy laughs. He does not mean it in a cruel way, but he knows it is cruel to laugh at another man’s misfortune. “Oh, no, no, Signore. The girl is here. The one to… ah, how do I say it? Patch up the cracks?” There is a grin spreading across the older man’s face. The boy does not smile. He is far too busy contemplating whether or not the manoeuvre was justified.

The diplomat’s eyes light up. Company. Coming from a woman, pleasant company. Even if she is only there for a moment, he thinks, it would give him a reason to live. His cell door swings open, and a girl dressed in a nun’s robe and habit is led inside. She hangs her head, keeping her face hidden from view. She looks at the young guard, anxious for him to leave. Reluctantly, he steps outside, walking away until he is hidden from view.

“Buonasera,” she finally says, taking the habit off of her head. Her long hair billows out from under it, and she adjusts it to properly frame her face. He is tempted, briefly, to run a hand through it, but he knows it will not work. His arms are trapped in that one position. She smiles warmly at him, and he relaxes. She resembles his dear wife at home, even though she is much younger. 

“Buonasera,” he replies, unable to stop himself from looking at her up and down. “Are you my angel? God’s gift to this earth? You look like it to me.”

She laughs, covering her mouth with her hand modestly. “You flatter me too much. I’m Annachiara. Annachiara Salvatore. A nun in disguise, but I do possess some healing skills. I guess.” Salvatore. Saviour. She looks down at the floor, and he realises that she is neither a nun nor a doctor. 

“Salvatore? Come to save the day, have we?” he says with a smirk on his face. Annachiara does not smirk like he does. Her role is to save, not to play along with the prisoner’s schemes. 

“You wish,” she answers, rolling her eyes. Annachiara pulls up the sleeves of her robes, exposing her unmarred flesh underneath. The diplomat’s eyes are fixated on her. She is hardly half his age, if. “I haven't come to entertain. I've come to heal you. Lie down, please.” He's staring at her, and she blushes, turning her face away from him. “Something you wish to tell me, Signore?” 

“You remind me so much of my wife when she was younger,” he comments, regretting his jealous and forlorn tone. Has he already been married for ten years? Eleven? Twelve? He cannot remember. He is in a state of delirium. “The way you move, the way you look, the way you speak. Your hair even tumbles down your shoulders just like hers does.” He is fascinated. She does not chastise him, but she instead gives him one of her little smiles. She is flattered, even though she dares not to say it. 

“I'll let you run a hand through it once I relocate your shoulders, if that's what you really want.” No, there are plenty of other things that he wants much more than to run his hand through this young girl’s hair, but he does not remember much else. “That's all you'll get from me.”

“There's plenty of things I could ask for,” the diplomat tells her, staring off. “To be restored to my position in the Florentine government. To see my family again. To see my beloved city. To have a night to spend with a lovely woman.” She laughs and pulls him into her arms, giving him a small bit of satisfaction. He leans into her, and even though he cannot hold her back, he is the happiest man in the world. Annachiara kisses him lightly on the head. He sits up with a start. “You said I wouldn't get that from you, I thought? You keep changing that definition.” 

“Keep dreaming,” she mutters, looking down at the prisoner. “Now, stop prolonging this. Lie down on your back for me.”

“Fine,” he says, adjusting his position. He never stops looking at her with his greedy, hungry eyes as he lies on his back. He stares up at her and behind her body, peering through the bars to see if anyone is watching. No one is, so he thinks, but there is always someone in the shadows. “Where do you hail from?”

“I come from the city. This city,” she answers, pushing the sleeves that have fallen over her hands back up on her arms, tucking them in so that they don’t droop again. “I’ve lived in this city my entire life, like you.”

He does not question why, or how she knows this. He only notices the odd lilt in her voice. “No, you can’t be. You do not sound like a Florentine. Your voice is not brash, and your features are not so rough,” he says, and there is suspicion in his voice and on his face again. He does not know if he believes her, or if he wants to. The diplomat is convinced that she is one of Heaven’s angels, Christ’s disciples, and he refuses to change his mind.

“Not all women resemble angels,” Annachiara remarks, gently taking his limp arm in her hand. She squeezes his hand to find it cold, the skin streaked with purple. “Dio mio, this doesn’t look good. How many drops did you suffer?”

“Sei.” His answer is curt, short, yet unexpected. “Does the number matter?” He winces, but he looks away. Tears are always unbecoming in a man, he reminds himself.

“How is that possible? The limit is four,” she asks him, and another reminder surfaces in his head: The limit is four. Was four. It was what the Prince dictated, wasn’t it? Four drops was all they were allowed. Four drops was all it took to reduce the great heretic, the great prophet, to a sobbing, begging heap. Four drops was all it took to make him confess and recant and confess again. The diplomat, however, has not borne four drops, but six, and he wonders what it is that has brought about this suffering. Was it because he looked lanky and thin? Was it because they wanted to snap him like a thin piece of wood? But he does not question it any longer, for it took six drops for them to be satisfied, and he confessed nothing and recanted nothing and confessed nothing again.

“Fortune merely wanted to test my strength,” he suggests, bracing himself for the upwards blow he is anticipating. Annachiara has the eyes of an angel, and she wouldn’t dare hurt him. She would never be willing to inflict the blow. He is wrong. She places his arm flush against his body and harshly shoves upwards, and, to his dismay, he lets out a small cry. He muffles a scream by biting his lip. “Distract me, make me remember a story, or something.”

“All right,” she says, gripping his arm like a vise. “You are a shameless lover of women; you could not make it more well-known. Tell me about one of them.” She readies his arm again, looking down at him for reassurance. He nods, sighing heavily and closing his eyes for a moment to recall a story, a story that happened four years ago, but he can hardly tell the difference between four years and forever.

“There was this one woman… At least, I think she was a woman, back in 1509, when I was still serving my city.” She blinks, a blank expression on her face. “Our city, mi dispiace. I was on a mission in Vero-ah, do you mind?” He inhales sharply, struggling to free his arm from her grasp as she manipulates it. 

“Hush. Continue,” she merely replies, patting his sore shoulder as reassurance. He squeezes his eyes shut for a second, trying to prevent tears from welling up in them. “Are you all right?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't I be?” he grins at her, his smile weak and his laughter pained. “Where was I again? About Verona, right?” His eyes glaze over, thinking about the next part, and it takes him everything he has not to burst into laughter. “I’d been without my dear wife for far too long, you see. She was all the way back here, in Firenze, and I was all alone, in Verona.” She jerks his arm upwards again, and he utters a cry that is more the strangled sound of trying to hold his breath than anything else. 

“And how long were you there before this happened?” Annachiara raises her eyebrow, casting him a look of disapproval. Next to her, she has brought sopping wet towels to lie across his head in case he should get too warm. She feels his skin and wonders if a fever is setting in. She drapes a towel over his forehead, and he shudders before growing still. 

“I must commit to the number of… three? Three days. That sounds about right. Three days without his wife can make a man do things he’s not proud of,” he brings himself to answer, grinning. 

“That’s all you can bring yourself to last for? Three days?” Annachiara rolls her eyes and suspends his arm in the air, leaving it in a painful position. She nudges him with her knee. “Hold still. This will hurt.”

“Three days, yes. I was suffering from conjugal famine, and taking care of the problem myself wasn’t doing it for me, you know?” he winks at her, and she shakes her head, smiling. “And related to this is the fact that I needed to wash my dusty clothes. I happened across an old washerwoman who lived in an underground basement. If I had been in a more right state of mind, I could have averted the situation, but seeing as I was-hngh, could you stop that-” He is cut off abruptly, and he writhes to escape her. “Fuck this, you can just leave them limp at this point, my wife will take care of me-”

“You’re disgusting,” she mutters. Even though her tone is joking, he knows she means it. “Honestly, if you don’t stop doing… whatever you’re doing, I’m going to sit on you.” She digs her nails into his arm and successfully relocates it. He winces at the sudden, sharp impact.

“Oh, fuck- I’d like that,” he gasps out, his voice strained from holding his breath. Even though there is a towel on his head, he is still sweating feverishly, and he does not know if it is the stuffy jail cell or her pretty, pretty face that is getting to him. He writes it off as a combination of both. “As I was saying-” he looks up at her to see her grinning and shaking her head, but she is trying to hide her face. “I end up at her door, and she asks me to come in. She tells me that she wants to sell me a shirt, and I think nothing of it, so I go inside. God only knows what possessed me to do such a thing. In the corner, there was a- please, please, Anna, give me a minute.” 

Annachiara helps him to sit up. She hears a rat squeak by her foot on the ground, and she gives it a small kick. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see it scurrying away, slipping through the narrow bars of the cell. By the time the diplomat turns his head, the rat is already gone and the towel draped across him has fallen into his lap. She merely hands him a glass of water, and even though she says nothing, the insistent look in her eyes is enough to make him drink it up. He grips the cup with a shaky, awkward hand, fumbling to wrap his fingers around it. She sighs and supports the bottom of the cup so he can drink.

It is always at the most inopportune moments that his hands will fail him, he thinks. It will be when he wants to hold his wife, when he wants to take a drink, or when he wants to lift a pen. He is a clumsy, bumbling fool. He will spill his ink all over the page and snap his quill in half with jerky motions. And he will curse himself, for the only thing that is clear about him is his mind. 

“Grazie,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat and struggles to set the glass down on the ground, so Annachiara takes it from him, gently pushing him onto his bed. “Shall I continue?”

 

“I’ll admit, I am rather curious about what you found in that basement,” she admits, replacing the towel on his head. “I fixed one of your arms. Only one left, unless you have one I don’t know about. Can you bear with me?”

“Of course I can.” 

The diplomat refrains from suggesting to her that somewhere else needs her “fixing”. He has had his fair share of sleeping with strange women. “There was a woman in the corner. She wore nothing on her body but a long towel. It covered her face, too, and I should have used that as my sign to not take a step nearer, but I failed myself. Morbid curiosity propelled me forward. The washerwoman points to her, and all she says to me is this: ‘This is the shirt I want to sell you, but I’d like you to try it on first and then pay for it’. I answered nothing to this, but the old woman exited the room and shut the door behind her. I was alone in the dark with the woman.” 

He laughs at himself, picturing the events that follow, but his laughter quickly turns into a surprised yelp of pain. “Cazzo. My old bones can only take so much. I hope you know that.” He feels a tingling sensation in his left arm. The blood has started rushing back into his fingertips, and their normal colour is restored. “Well, I simply couldn’t hold back. I fucked her.”

Annachiara snorts, burying her face in her hands. “Gesù Cristo. You’re a disaster,” she responds, harshly yanking on his arm and drawing out a loud cry from him. “I’m almost done, just so you know.”

The diplomat shifts his weight, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable and exposed. “Thank God,” he mutters, wincing as he sets his weight down on his newly-relocated arm. “It was a decent fuck, I’ll have to admit. Just one man and one woman in the dark together. What I errored in doing was-” he inhales sharply, tears welling up in his eyes- “was lighting a lantern and taking the towel off of her. I swear, I have never seen anything - anyone - so ugly in my entire life! She vaguely resembled Lorenzo de’ Medici, and I begun to wonder whether or not it was Lorenzo de’ Medici, even though he had long been dead at that point. There was not a single part of her that was remotely attractive, and-” 

He lets out a cry that sounds vaguely like a moan, making Annachiara question whether or not she should allow him to finish the story. “Are you done yet? By God, this is agonising,” he groans, allowing a single tear to drip from his eye and not another more. 

“One more thrust, at most.” He smirks up at her, pinching her thigh. “Oh, will you stop? You know what I mean to say.”

“Do I?” he asks, sighing heavily. He is far from tired, however, and he intends to finish his tale. “So, the hideous creature is looking up at me, and she asks me, ‘What’s the matter, sir?’. I could have tolerated every part of her except for her horribly-stinking breath. I ended u-up-” He utters a final cry as his shoulder is finally set back into place that quickly turns into a hearty guffaw. “I threw up all over her. Emptied my stomach. Probably three days worth of scarce food, too. I hope she enjoyed my little present.”

For a brief moment, Annachiara is speechless. She massages his shoulders and looks directly at him, her expression ice-cold as she helps him to sit up. Then, although it is clear she does not want to, she bursts into laughter. Her laugh is beautiful, he finds himself noticing. It sounds like little bells ringing on top of miniature churches, and he is in bliss. If he could die in that very moment, he would, just to have her laughter be the last thing he hears. She is so radiant, so beautiful, so tangible. So mortal.

The diplomat is woken with a start. Dear, sweet Niccolò is woken with a start. The attendant surgeon sits down next to him and motions for another guard to hold down his prisoner. After the guard has placed a firm hand on the diplomat’s chest, he looks down at the floor. The surgeon grabs the little diplomat’s arm and shoves it back into place, and he is met with a scream of agony.

Was it the right thing to do? I honestly do not know. But I cannot bear to see it, and I, lost in thoughts of grief and regret, turn my head away from the scene, focussing my attention instead on the string of chanting that has started up outside the window again.


End file.
